Daily Gratitude: “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”

Sounds pretty obvious, huh? I’m sure you’re wondering “so what Terrie? we all know that.”

I am sure everyone knows this. However knowing it doesn’t keep people from procrastinating and then complaining about how they can’t get things done or whatever they’re doing isn’t that good because it was “rushed”.

I have known this concept for years and yet I still procrastinate. So I’m not pointing fingers. Just reminding people.

It’s also helpful to put some sort of excitement into whatever you have to do. That makes it something to look forward to.

I make lists but that doesn’t always help. I just end up moving the same thing to the next day.

My parts (IFS-Internal Family Systems) hold the secret to why I procrastinate. If I don’t finish something then no one can ever see that I’m not perfect. They can’t criticize what I’ve done. This part is too young to comprehend what people can criticize when I procrastinate. Parts are not insightful. They have one job and that’s to protect me. In this case it’s to keep me from doing something less than perfectly.

Until I realized that, nothing I did would overcome the procrastination. Fear is such a pervasive emotion. It’s like mold. It permeates every aspect of your life. But you don’t recognize it until the damage has been done.

Anyway, it’s been a long time since I’ve written about IFS and I thought this topic was a great way to reintroduce it.

If you’ve been interested in IFS, have you looked into it? If not, why not? Why are you procrastinating? You don’t have enough time? Well then, you’re not that interested, right? See how insidious it is.